


where do we stand/here or on that sink?

by waterfront



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Dry Humping, F/M, Post Season 3, Sequel, basement make out, conflicting emotions, dry humping is not appreciated enough tbh, hmm what else to tag this as?, not really porn but like two seconds away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8826247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterfront/pseuds/waterfront
Summary: Of course, though, it had to be Seth who found her. Who dared to poke and prod and pull at her façade of doing just okay. Resolve was a slippery thing and she watched it rain out of his fingers like hot sand. (sequel to you can dance to lady gaga - because i got a very sweet request and i'm obsessed with SK making out on every available surface.)





	

           “Yes, Richard, yes, I know where the extra crate of tequila is.”

It was well-past midnight. Which of course, to a crowd full of drunk snake people and regular humans, that meant it was shot o’clock. Freddie had offered to buy a round for everybody, his prestigious ranger’s hat tilting dangerously on his head. Seth would have happily obliged, certainly after snapping several opportunities for later blackmail. The only problem was the tequila seemed to be the drink of choice.

“It’s down the stairs to the left,” Richie called over his shoulder as he made his fifteenth rum and coke of the night, this time for the one of the three hostesses.

“I got it, I got it.” Seth waved him away, over the noise of the crowd. He paused for a moment, looking back into the mass of people clamoring by the bar. No flash of white. Not even on the dance floor. Where was the birthday girl?

Seth bustled through the lingering crowd at the far right of the bar, a few shipping boys making out, and to their storage room. He clicked on the light and, there sitting at the bottom of the old wooden stairs on some old boxes, her hair in her face, was—

“Kate?” Her big green eyes snapped up and she leapt to her feet. “What are you doing down here?”

A dash of pink colored her cheeks and she smoothed her dress on her hip. “Oh, I—uh— I came down to—er— look for something.”

Seth came down the stairs, frowning. He looked around in the damp darkness. Boxes, extra chairs, tables, a broken counter and sink for washing dirty dishes. He glanced back at her. Her look was hazy, a little off-center, but her eyes were dry.

“Why are you alone in here? It’s your birthday.”

She smiled, exasperated, and flopped back down onto a box. “Everybody wants to buy me a shot! And, it’s not that I’m not grateful, I just need a moment to breathe. I want to remember every second of this.”

Seth chuckled and sat down on a box next to her. Maggie had taken her out to get her nails done as a birthday present and in the half-light, her small hands were elegant, reminiscent of something like Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He reached into their plastic bin for water bottles and handed her one. She took it appreciatively and screwed off the cap.

“Katie, it’s your twenty-first birthday. You’re not really supposed to remember it.”

She paused and lowered the bottle from her lips. Her eyes fixated on the ground and the cap in her hands, she muttered: “I want to remember dancing with you.”

Seth’s tongue suddenly got too big for his mouth. “I’ve always been told I’ve got two left-feet.”

She looked up at him and his heart started beating erratically. “Dancing with you . . . it was really . . . nice.”

Seth swallowed and glanced away. “Good to hear, Princess.”

He watched her tear at the label on the bottle.

“So, what are you even doing down here?” She asked lightly, playfully, to get the moment going. “Besides interrupting my singular moment of peace and quiet.”

“Seems like the party continues even when the birthday girl decides to call it quits.” Seth stood and moved some boxes in the corner. “Richie sent me down looking for more tequila. Everyone’s getting a little sloppy upstairs.”

“Third row over, two crates up.”

Seth raised an eyebrow at her. Kate shrugged and leaned back, kicking her feet. “I’ve been down here maybe twenty minutes.”

He squat down to pick up the box, but then paused. He looked back over his shoulder. She was already watching him, half her face in loose darkness from the overhanging bare bulb. Was that trepidation? It was the same look she had given him across the bar— when she was silently pleading with him to ask her to dance.

“Kate, are you sure you’re okay?”

* * *

Despite the fact that she had walked no-doubt countless miles in these shoes, and despite the overwhelming sense of surprise that so many people (human or otherwise) had happily shown up to celebrate her birthday,  _ and _ despite that her head was just fuzzy enough to ask Seth Gecko to dance and that had gone indescribably well, Kate’s feet were aching and she needed a second of quiet.

Which was surprising given that for the past several months, she craved noise. She craved people. She craved that moment when she stepped into what had been Malvado’s private kitchen and found the boys laughing and Richie immediately launched into the premise of his joke— or when she went and found Scott in his own apartment, eating Captain Crunch and watching America’s Funniest Home Videos and he eagerly invited her to join— she needed her people. She craved Kisa’s encouragement and the strange bond they had formed as sparring partners. Kate knew the goddess recognized the fear in Kate’s eyes— she knew what being powerless felt like; what it was like to be used. Freddie and Mags had become family in their own way, but it was almost impossible to cry around them, because in someway this had been the fate she chose and even outside of the Twister, she knew there would be consequences.

But when Kate found an open door leading to a dark basement, a part of Jack Knife Jed’s she had yet to discover, it was like breathing in for the first time. It was a little cold and damp, but she found that box and felt . . . better.

Of course, though, it had to be Seth who found her. Who dared to poke and prod and pull at her façade of doing just okay. Often times she wondered if he was simply respecting her wishes not to talk about her time being infused with Amaru, or if he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her about the last six months period— about  _ them _ . About how exactly he had become so intricate in her life, in her happiness, in her recovery. How he had been a solid shadow in a reality that had become a revolving door of people, allies, death, pain, and redemption.

When he paused, looked at her with strikingly heavy eyes, his brilliantly angular face soft for her, as it had been since he took her into his shiny car and away from the darkest night of their lives, she knew he was teetering. Resolve was a slippery thing and she watched it rain out of his fingers like hot sand.

“Kate, are you sure you’re okay?”

She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. Better than I have been.”

He stood and turned back to her, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, Scott told me the nightmares are starting up again. You know you’re always welcome back here with Richie and me. We can clean out that extra room again—,”

“I just don’t know what is real.”

The rushing in her ears was the floodgates bursting open and his expression was ravaged.

“What?”

Kate sighed. There, that felt like relief. She had finally said it. He eclipsed the hanging bulb as he walked towards her. She grasped her elbow to keep her hand from shaking.

“Amaru made me see things. She strapped me down and made me watch her destroy images of my god, of what I believed in. I couldn’t look away. Then she began to imagine what the world would be like under her rule. What her rivers of blood would look like as they drowned out humanity. Sometimes it felt so real, I figured we lost.” Kate dropped his gaze, unable to stand his agony over her any longer. “I know they’re just bad dreams. But Seth, what if I never woke up? What if I’m still trapped and all of this, all of this happiness, is just another trick?”

She was crying before she could stop herself and a sob pressed so sharply against her throat, she couldn’t breathe for a moment. She smeared the tears with her palm— and nearly jumped when his warm hand wrapped itself around her wrist.

Seth was kneeling in front of her, the lines of his mouth set and firm. He took her hand and pressed it over his heart. His other hand dropped to her knee.

“That, do you feel that?” He was searching her face expectantly. Beneath her fingertips, his heart beat steadily. One beat after another. One step after another. Forward.

His skin was warm beneath his black shirt. She nodded and sniffed, tears just now brimming her eyes.

“That’s _real_.” The weight of his eyes was crushing. In one blow, her tears seized, the din from the bar ceased, and she was in a tailspin. Down, both wings gone, and the earth rushing beneath her, right into him. “My blood is your blood and you’re right here. You’re real.”

Her fingers curled around his black shirt.

“I’m so scared of waking up—,”

He was already rising when she pulled him to her. When their lips met, that—  _ that was relief _ .

Kate would forever wonder how alleviation could feel so much like immolation.

He kissed her hungrily, as though she  _ would _ fade and he would disappear with her. The hand on her knee went up her thigh to her hip and his fingertips dug into her skin. She kissed him back, her searing lips demanding fealty, demanding a promise, that he would never go back after this. Wherever he went, she went too. If she was real, then goddamn it, let  _ him  _ be real.

He swore harshly when she dipped her head to his throat and sucked on the skin above his vein. His hand drove to her backside and in an instant, she was being carried. She held on to his shoulders, his teeth pulling at her earlobe as a low groan vibrated in his chest.

Seth dropped her onto the sheet-covered bar and even through the sheet, the chill from the linoleum caught her thighs. But when she shuddered, it was unclear whether her gasp came from the cold, or Seth’s bite on her collarbone.

“Seth—,” she was breathless and he answered her with his lips across hers. Her hand held the back of his neck, the short hair rustling against her fingers. She tugged abruptly and he moaned into her mouth. His hands found her hips, and pulled her to the edge of the counter. Immediately, she tucked her knees to his sides and when she rubbed against the seam of the front of his jeans, she broke the lock of their mouths and gasped. The rigid hardness, _right there_ — it was tempestuous.

One hand braced next to her hip, he was panting, and Kate was struggling to breathe. They watched each other’s expressions, as though fearful the other one might run away.

“Kate, I—,”

But she silenced him with a jerk of her head. Her eyes wide, slowly, she wrapped her right arm around the back of his neck, and propping herself up with her other palm against the counter, she wrapped her legs around the back of his thighs and pressed herself against him again. Seth rasped out another curse when she began to grind with her hips. The pointed seam hit her in a place that was numbing her brain. It sent a single message: more.

He kissed her distractedly, on the corner of her mouth, before she dropped her head back and he tongued her throat. She dug her nails into his shoulder and he bit her neck and sucked so hard she knew there would be evidence.

“Fuck, Katie, you gotta slow down.” He sounded as though someone had struck him over the head, voice heavy and slow.

“Why?”

“Because I’m gonna—,”

The basement door banged open and the two froze.

“Seth?” Scott’s voice called from the top of the stairs, the music infinitely louder. His words were slurred. “Are you down here?”

Kate bit her lip, her head spinning. “Don’t say anything—,”

Seth chuckled and kissed her cheek. “Scott, fuck off. I’m trying to, uh, find a box.”

Kate rolled her hips for punitive damages and Seth groaned into her hair.

Silence. “Yeah, alright, man. You haven’t seen Kate, have you?”

His smirk was dangerous. She thumped his shoulder. “Nah, man, haven’t seen her all night.”

“Alright. See ya.”

The door shut and he kissed her again. She returned it but only for a moment, before pushing him back and sliding off the counter. He rolled his eyes and tucked his shirt back into his pants. She tried adjusting her headband, a warm blush creeping into her cheeks when his hands went around her waist again.

“You were the one who said we had to stop.”

He put his lips to her throat from behind. “Only for now.”

Kate frowned and turned around. His eyes grew serious. “Do you mean that? You want more of that? With me?”

Seth’s gaze softened. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and drew a thumb down the side of her cheek. “I’ve wanted a lot more for a long time. I just wanted to talk about it first.”

Kate rolled her eyes to keep her heart from expanding out of her chest. “What are you, a seventeen year old girl?”

Seth shook his head, his gaze all heat and hope. “No. And neither are you.”

He went forward and kissed her again. She broke them apart when she felt the hot edge dig into her bones again. His eyes were gentle, happy.

“We gotta get you back up there. Birthday party and all that.”

“Okay.”

“When everyone’s gone, we talk, alright?”

Kate bit her lip, grinning at the thought of his hands on her, and stepped back onto the stairs, pulling Seth by his hand. “No.  _ Tomorrow morning _ , we talk. Tonight . . .”

She shrugged offhandedly and Seth kissed her temple. Tonight, tonight was real.

 

**Author's Note:**

> AHHHH i love you guys thank you so much for all of the requests. I'm just genuinely sorry I can't answer them all as fast as y'all send them. They're so much FUN! <3


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